Tuesday morning I had several does spook and come running through my stand area. I was lucky and had a runner coming down a trail from up the hill, scaring one of the does back down to my stand where I was able to stop her and make a shot. Polish sausage will soon be made.
So Odin is my new pup. He is a 3-month-old chocolate lab. I have been working hard training him and taking him out bird hunting with me to get him used to the idea of gunshots and being in the woods, responding to my commands.
It could not have worked out more perfectly when I flushed this bird. We were standing in the middle of a gravel road so Odin could see everything as it happened. The grouse flushed from my right and was flying away, but then turned left out in from of me across the gravel road where I shot and knocked it down. Odin saw the whole thing. The bird still had a little life left in it and that is when I made a motion towards the downed bird and yelled “Odin fetch!” He was hesitant at first, lunging forward and stopping waiting to see what I was doing, but he could see the bird flopping up ahead. I yelled again “Fetch!” and he ran to the bird only to jump back as it flopped. He was not sure what to do. I yelled “Fetch it up!” And then he did. He pounced on it like a cat and got a mouthful of grouse. I blew my trill whistle and he very proudly brought it back to me. I gave him lots of praise. I have a feeling he is going to be an outstanding bird dog.
nting,
It’s getting close to the end of the stream trout season and this is the best time of year to get out there and catch some brookies in their peak colors (along with the trees). Phil called me up and had an itch to catch some trout so we headed downtown to scout out some fishy holes in a local creek. The water was very low, and is very low pretty much all summer – but we were able to locate some bigger holes that were holding a good number of fish and we had some success. Phil even found a school of good-sized suckers.
Phil and one of his trophy suckers.
Drew had the lowdown on a lake he wanted to try and catch some lake trout on so I joined him for a couple of days in the BWCA to see if we could find any. We mostly trolled spoons behind a nifty little invention called the “pink lady.”
Selecting lake trout spoons is just plain silly and the naming conventions are even more ridiculous. There must be a lot of bored individuals out there who like to paint metal. I just grabbed a couple of spoons in some general “fish-catching” colors that looked like they would throw off some flash and was on my way.
After arriving to our destination lake and setting up camp, we were eager to get out fishing.
It didn’t take long after setting up our trolling rods for Drew to hook up with the first fish.
Fishing was pretty slow after that first fish but from the sounds of it, that is typical for this lake. A four-fish day is considered pretty good, so we were happy to catch 3 more during the duration of our trip to round out our limit before heading out.
The weather was a bit rainy, but the nights/evenings were wonderful. There were no bugs around and the temperatures were ideal for sitting around the fire and getting a good night sleep.
